My Life with a Smart Phone

I have entered the new Millenium. In January, I got my very first iPhone. Before that, I’d occasionally use my husband’s iPhone 4. How has my life changed? You’d better sit down for this.

1. My friends can text me. Imagine that! It has been very helpful for sharing carpool duties and sharing info. I was shopping and saw something my friend was looking for so I took a quick photo and sent a text. I wish I’d had something like that in 1983. Am I right, ladies? (I’m sorry, I just really wanted to say that last sentence. No particular reason.)

2. People can reach me wherever I am. I can actually leave my home and not worry about the school calling me, or my husband wondering where I am, or the car breaking down and finding a phone. Amazing.

3. My husband can know where I am just by checking his Find Friends app. Some extra peace of mind in case I (perish the thought) get in an accident, get lost, or have a car issue. GPS is a beautiful thing.

4. Now I have something to do while I wait at the bus stop. Yesterday was the first day it was warm enough to actually use the phone without my fingers freezing. I bought a pair of those gloves that let you use your phone but my fingers still froze.

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5. Shopping. Ah, shopping. Coupons on the go! Price comparisons. So many wonderful things you can do in the middle of a store. Take photos of “this might work” or “ooh, gotta remember this for next time”or uh, this:

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Heh, found this product sitting like this in the dollar store. It should say “Live”. I was tempted to change it to “Vile”.

6. When I’m working with Adobe programs on my computer, I usually can’t have my web browser or other programs open. With my lovely phone, I can check my email, facebook, or anything else I need while working on my graphic design stuff. Very important, indeed.

7. Photos are everywhere. I’m loving iCloud. Photos are taken on my phone and then I see them on my computer. That’s a serious level of awesome.

8. I can record my kids having funny conversations. That never gets old.

9. I can make lists and now I have no excuse for leaving my grocery list at home. It’s on my phone.

10. This is a biggie. It’s my cookbook! I’m constantly searching for recipes or ingredients on the Allrecipes app. Or if that doesn’t have what I need, I do a quick “google”.

I realize these are “uh, duh” reasons that are obvious but I’m okay with that. That’s kind of the point. I’m a little late to 2015.

I try to imagine how much easier this would have made my entire life. Then I try to imagine how my kids will struggle to fathom how it must have been for us old fogies to live in an era where information had to be sought out with great effort and often to no avail. I remember being limited to the newspaper, the encyclopedias, Sassy magazine, and whatever our library had on the shelves. I had to imagine what celebrities did in their free time. There was no twitter feed showing me what Alyssa Milano ate for breakfast. But here is what I had for lunch.

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For my next post, I’ll show you how I made those Sharpie T-shirts in the last post.

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